Monday, June 25, 2012

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took swipes at President Barack Obama’s immigration policies today and even questioned whether states would have joined the United States at all given today’s ruling on Arizona’s immigration law.

In his comments from the bench, which expanded on his written minority opinion, Scalia blasted Obama’s decision to stop deporting many young illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.

“The issue is a stark one: Are the sovereign states at the mercy of the federal executive’s refusal to enforce the nation’s immigration laws? A good way of answering that question is to ask: Would the states conceivably have entered into the union if the Constitution itself contained the court’s holding?” Scalia asked. “If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign state.”